Jeeping

This is a Sunday Story – no politics today. Just a story about Jeeps!!!!

Cross Country "Jeep" Sweatshirt

Watkins Cross Country Team Shirt – 1998

New Jeep

I bought my first Jeep Wrangler (TJ) in 1993.  It was white, with a black soft top and what Jeep calls “half doors”.  That meant that the bottom halves of the two doors were metal, white, actual doors, while the top halves were black canvas on a springy metal frame.  The canvas tops had clear plastic windows set into them.  So you could unzip the window, pull it inside the door in the Jeep, and have an open window; fall, winter and spring.  And the summer, you took the top halves off and set them in the back of the Jeep.  The half doors came off too (as long as you didn’t want side mirrors).  As my Marine friend said, you could hang your leg out like it was an old Vietnam era Jeep.

Now I paid bottom dollar for my brand new TJ.  It cost extra for the rearview mirror and the back “tumble” seat.  There wasn’t a radio, but that was OK.  I put my own sound system in all of my cars anyway.   And what I didn’t realize when I bought it, was that Jeeps came with drain plugs in the floor.  Top off, doors off, windows off; if you got caught in the rain (or tried to drive across a shallow lake – yep!!) then all you had to do was pry the drain plugs out and tilt the car downhill.  The water ran right out.

The Cult

That Jeep was the “bomb”.  Even in the winter, the heater made up for the drafty windows and the four-wheel-drive kept going in the snow.  The only time I really got cold, was when it was twenty below zero with thirty mile an hour wind.  My friend Mickey and I decided to go to a movie since it was a “snow day” from school ( a “freeze day” really).  I will admit, driving around I-270 in the Jeep was a near-outdoor challenge.  

What I didn’t realize in ’93 was that buying a Jeep put you into a cult, sort of like when we bought the camper twenty-five years later.  Jeep folks (that’s Wrangler-type Jeep folks, not those Comanche, Wagoneer or Liberty drivers) recognize each other, especially back in the 1990’s when there weren’t so many of us.  It was an insider code:  see a Jeep coming, give the “peace sign” above the steering wheel.  Kind of like the Harley motorcycle guys and their clenched fist, but more subtle.  

You could tell who had been in the club the longest.  Those CJ people (Jeeps of the 1980’s) called the windows “side curtains”, and didn’t mind that their Jeeps only had three speeds.  And they might never put a full top on their Jeeps, just a “bikini” top to keep the rain off of the inside of the windshield.   Jeeps were more like four-wheel motorcycles then, good for three-season driving. 

Four Wheeling

Getting caught in a rain storm without a top was one of the “funnest” things to happen in a Jeep, as long as it wasn’t too cold.  You drove fast, that way the rain swept over the windshield and not down on you.  It was only when you stopped that the “drenching” would begin.   Of course, there are no “inside” windshield wipers.  You had to have a towel ready to clear your view.

 And the first time I hit a giant puddle at fifty miles an hour (on Palmer Road) without the top – I was more than surprised.  Oh, the Jeep handled it fine, but the water went over the front, over the windshield, and right on top on me, just like those wet roller coaster rides at the amusement park.

I did off-road the Jeep, but I wasn’t into the crazy “rock climbing” kind of stuff.  After-all, the Jeep was my day-to-day vehicle.  I couldn’t risk flipping it over, or breaking an axle.  So while I might fly through dirt paths (or no paths) I liked the Jeep because it made driving fun. There was really no where I couldn’t go, no field I couldn’t cross.  And when it actually got “almost” stuck, there was always Four-Wheel Low.  First gear might go three miles an hour, but you could “creep” out of almost any mess.

That is, except for the time I decided to do “donuts” in the school parking lot after a big snowfall.  I was spinning around, having a ball, when the whole Jeep slid on top of the four-foot snow drift.  All four wheels were spinning, four wheel drive or not.  As I was sitting there, contemplating what to do next, a kid from across the street came over with his Massey Ferguson farm tractor: “Mr. Dahlman, you stuck?”  It only took a few minutes to hook up the chains and drag me out, but he got the “honor” of telling the story the first day we were back in school.

Jeep-ese

Speaking of kids, several learned the arcane art of driving a stick-shift, out in the school fields and woods in my Jeep.  One took it to Prom, roof on, of course (wouldn’t want to ruin her prom dress!).  And the Jeep even carried fifteen foot pole vault poles, slung on top of the roll bars.  It looked like some weird missile launching system – but it got us to Cleveland and back for the track meet.

I learned all sorts of new terms with the Jeep.  “Seat belt tan”, was when you drove around too long with the Jeep’s and your top off.  “Bug Destroyer” was the vertical windshield on a Jeep – it killed everything in its path, and often had to be ice scraper’ed off even in the summer – cleanser just wouldn’t get it.  “Cell phone privacy”:  it was near impossible to have a phone conversation with the top off at seventy miles an hour.  “I’m in the Jeep, I’ll call you back later”, was all you could say with a hurricane in the background.

And finally “just a car”, when it came to driving on ice.  Four-wheels spinning on ice weren’t a whole lot better than two.  Ice required an attitude adjustment.  You couldn’t drive like a “Jeep” anymore.

Old Jeep Disease

I drove that Jeep until it got “old Jeep disease”.  Rust ate through the body.  By 2008 I was near “Fred Flinstoneing” it, with holes in the floor and the door panels.  So I began a search for my next vehicle, which turned out to be – a white Jeep with a black top, two-door; this time a 2004, designated by Jeep as a “YJ”.  I sold my old Jeep to one of my best 400 meter runners, who ultimately sold it to the father of another runner, who took two years to completely rebuild it.  I still occasionally see the old TJ on the road, looking proud, better than it did when it came off the lot back in 1993. 

I’m still driving the “YJ”.  It’s summer, the top’s been off for a few days, and the “summer, all canvas” doors are leaning against the fence.  I only need doors if I’m going on the highway, where side mirrors are particularly useful.  Now that its twenty years old, it too is getting “old Jeep disease” and the heater isn’t great.  

But the floors are still intact, and it still drives like a Jeep.  And there’s a new “Jeep thing”; the little rubber ducks on the dash.  The original idea was that Jeep “people” would see another Jeep they liked, and pass on a duck to it.  Some people get completely carried away, with dozens of ducks all over the place.  I’m not that far gone.  But I do have a duck “family”; Mom, Dad, older son and two duckings, “floating” on the dash panel below the rear view mirror.  They all “magically appeared” in parking lots across Ohio.  Some “Jeepers” respect an old YJ, still going strong.   

And I keep my ducks “in a row”.  After all, it’s a Jeep!!

The Sunday Story Series

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.